"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
This episode deals with power, the power that one human being can exert over another. The central plot involved a man who has confessed to killing 14 people while making each one look like a suicide. Robert Patrick Modell, as menacingly played by Robert Wisden, is one of the more imposing villains of this series because of the nature of his "special gift." This episode, written by Vince Gilligan and directed by Robert Bowman moves along at a deliberate pace, which is a nice change from the breakneck speed at which the previous A/GC arc took us. Editor Heather MacDougall splices together the scenes in an adequate, if not skillful manner.
There are several tributes in this episode that a casual observer might miss. The reference to The Dick Van Dyke Show, when Modell calls AD Skinner "Mel Cooley" may have been lost on some younger viewers. For those who are interested, Mel Cooley was a character on The Dick Van Dyke Show. played by Richard Deacon. Deacon had a bald pate and hair around the sides, as AD Skinner does. Mel Cooley bore the brunt of many bald jokes by Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam) on the show. Reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show can be seen nightly on Nick at Night.
There is, of course, the self-referential picture of Flukeman on the cover of the "Weekly World Informer." But the most memorable of all is the climactic scene in the hospital, with Mulder and Modell playing Russian Roulette. I flashed back to the Oscar-winning movie, The Deer Hunter, starring Robert DiNero and Christopher Walken. The tension and outcome were practically the same in both the movie and this episode.
Writer Vince Gilligan has done something in this episode that he did in his last effort, "Soft Light"; he has created a scenario for an X-File which is actually possible within the realm of the human experience. It is a stretch to believe that a human being could project their will on another human being, but the basis for this eXtraordinary phenomenon is, it would appear, based in scientific and medical fact. This makes the episode all the more real and all the more scary, and it goes a long way towards carrying the plot to its inevitable conclusion. You just knew that Modell, unlike Darren Oswald and Eugene Tooms (in "Squeeze"), wasn't going to be around at the end. The fact that he was "alive" is mitigated by Scully's statement that he was never going to regain consciousness and that he would die soon.
There were several very subtle humorous moments in this episode. When Mulder explains that mind manipulation is part of every TV commercial, Scully brings up buying hair color. Mulder's statement that "He's a golfer and a murderer" was a thinly-disguised jab at a former Heisman Trophy winner who was accused of murdering his estranged wife and her friend. The irony of Frank Burst's heart literally bursting at the suggestion of Modell was not lost on me, either.
There was a nice melding of sentiment and and respect in this episode. Scully's longing look as Mulder was about to enter the hospital, and her gently placing her hand on his as he left was both touching and realistic. Her effortless reaching for and clutching of Mulder's hand in the denoument scene in Modell's hospital room spoke volumes without the necessity for words. This episode, where both agents' lives were at stake, and where they worked together as a team for the first time in several episodes, was a nice change from the episodes prior to the "Piper Maru/Apocrypha" arc.
Gillian Anderson's work seems to be getting better weekly, and I didn't think that this was possible. From her detached rationality when discussing "the whammy," to her moment of truth in the hospital as Mulder and Modell play Russian Roulette, to her tenderness with Mulder in the final scene, GA displays a wide range of emotions almost unmatched on TV today. It was nice to see David Duchovny's Mulder leave the "angry young man" behind and expand his range. His look into Scully's eyes as he was about to go into the hospital was one of genuine warmth and tenderness. Mitch Pileggi, on the other had, is starting to become a punching bag, and his scenes with Holly and then M & S were too short. I felt Skinner was wasted in this episode, even though it's a joy to see Pileggi on screen. He was merely a peripheral in this episode.
A former co-worker of mine once said to me,"It's a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter." This witticism, however grammatically incorrect, would seem to apply here. There are several flaws which I found in this episode that I feel compelled to mention.
In the opening scene, the car with the prisoner is the last car in a string of over 10 cars. This makes no sense at all. Why would you put the car carrying a suspected serial killer last in line? I'd put this car in the middle, so it wouldn't get separated from the others. Along the same line, if the car carrying the prisoner was last in line, why didn't the law enforcement agents have one car stop traffic and let all the others pass through all at once? Obviously, neither one of these logical scenarios would allow the encounter with Cerulean Blue to take place, so the episode starts out with a forced premise.
When Mulder takes the stand in the preliminary hearing, it's the judge who is asking Mulder the questions. Uh, excuse me, but I thought that this was the province of the prosecuting attorney. There was one there. He piped up to remark about the chain of evidence in the case. This glaring mistake is inexcusable, and an insult to the viewers. Gilligan wants you to get the OJ reference, but then supposes that you've never seen a preliminary hearing. Puh-leeze!
I had a problem with the scene where Agent Collins self-incinerates. Mulder, Scully and Burst were no more than five feet away, and Collins was pleading for them to stop him, while at the same time he was having trouble getting the lighter to light. No one tried to snatch the lighter from his hand, and he ended up dying in front of them. This death was totally avoidable had any of the three agents acted humanely. If Scully had the presence of mind to fetch a fire extinguisher, why didn't she douse the hapless agent before he lit up?
I made reference to AD Skinner's being beaten up by Holly in the computer room. Two weeks after being shot in the stomach and one week after returning to duty, Skinner gets kicked in the stomach. Yet in the next scene, he's calmly sitting at his desk, reviewing the incident, none the worse for the wear. He should have been in Intensive Care.
So, while there was much to like about this episode, there were a lot of flaws that detracted from it. "If you don't mind, it don't matter." Well, these things do matter to me.
My Score: 9.3 out of 10